


How Do You Say Hello To A Dead Man?

by toesohnoes



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-01
Updated: 2011-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-24 05:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toesohnoes/pseuds/toesohnoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Darwin pieces himself together again, Alex doesn't know how to express his relief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Do You Say Hello To A Dead Man?

**Author's Note:**

> Written at my [Tumblr](http://toestastegood-fic.tumblr.com/post/10733476228/alex-keeps-his-distance-after-darwin-comes-back).

Alex keeps his distance after Darwin comes back. He doesn’t mean to. Not exactly.

But it’s hard to be around him. It’s hard to look at his face and remember the sight of it burning away because of him.

Standing at his side, both of them leaning against the wall, Darwin doesn’t seem willing to accept that. “I survived,” he says. “That’s my mutation. I was always going to survive.”

Alex shakes his head: they didn’t know that, couldn’t know that. Because, yeah, evolution can help a creature adapt to survive under water or in hot climates or up trees. Not nuclear freaking war.

“Whatever,” Alex mutters. “You were dead.”

“Being dead’s a lot like being alive,” Darwin answers. He nudges Alex’s arm with his elbow, barely able to reach with his hands still in his pockets. “It’s like you’re mad at me for coming back.”

Alex has to look at him then, because he can’t glare if he isn’t looking. “It’s not like that.”

Every time that he thinks of Darwin’s death he thinks he should lock himself up in jail again. People aren’t safe around him - they never will be.

Darwin’s hand slips out of his pocket and he lays it on Alex’s hand, so casual about physical contact, just the way he has been from the beginning. That first night, their only night, Alex doesn’t think Darwin even understood what he was doing to him - like he hadn’t understood that Alex had voluntarily been in solitary confinement for months, like he didn’t realise that nobody had touched him in such an off-hand way since he’d lost his brother.

Darwin doesn’t understand anything.

Alex desperately wants to hate him for it: for being so close and for dying and for coming back and for making him feel like this. He wants to punch the guy in the goddamn face.

Yet all he can do is lean into Darwin’s touch, that casual hand, and pretend that the world has been set right.


End file.
